The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) was passed by the
U.S. Congress in 1998 to deal with copyright infringement by
electronic means, particularly over the Internet.

NextGenNews and the DMCA

NextGenNews is forced by certain suppliers to have an DMCA
policy online, regardless of the fact that the DMCA does not apply
to us as an South African company.

Below you will find guidance for drafting and submitting a
notification to NextGenNews which will help ensure that your Notice
is handled as promptly as possible. It doesn't matter whether you
are a big corporation with tons of copyrighted materials or the
little guy with a single copyrighted work, your copyright is
important to us and we will do what is required to protect your
copyrights under the DMCA.

Who can submit a DMCA Notice?

The DMCA only allows the copyright holder or a legally
authorized agent of the copyright holder to legally submit DMCA
Notices. If you are neither the copyright holder, nor the
authorized agent thereof, and you have information on what you
believe to be a copyrighted work found on our service, please
direct your findings to the copyright holder. Legally, under the
DMCA only the copyright holder can identify their property and
affirm under the penalty of perjury that it should be taken
down.

What information do we need in a DMCA Notice?

A properly formatted DMCA Notice will adhere to the guidelines
and principals established by the DMCA itself. The necessary
elements of a properly formed DMCA Notice are:

Clear identification of the person or entity submitting the
DMCA Notice.

Message-IDs for all articles the DMCA Notice is requesting to
be taken down. Please keep in mind some files are large enough to
be posted across several Usenet articles; these are called
multi-part posts. Be certain to identify by Message-ID all articles
you want taken down.

Clear statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information
in the notification is accurate and that you are copyright holder,
or authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder.

A "physical or electronic signature" of an authorized person to
act on behalf of the owner. This is fulfilled by a name and a
physical address that the authorized individual can be contacted
should someone wish to contest your notification.

While not legally required by the DMCA, including "copyright
violation" in the subject line of your email will flag your DMCA
Notice and bypass spam categorization.

Submit the Notice to our abuse department, available through our
contacts page.

I'm a copyright holder, how do I protect my copyrighted
works?

The Internet is a complex place. There are many protocols and
applications other than the web, and new methods of sharing
information are created all the time. It would be nearly impossible
for all but the most technically savvy persons to keep up with the
ways the Internet can be used for sharing information. We do not
believe technological progress on the Internet is a bad thing; it
is merely a reality of the Internet.

Because of the ever-changing environment, and the complexity of
policing the Internet at large for copyrighted materials, new
businesses have formed to do exactly this job in the digital world
on behalf of copyright holders. These online copyright and brand
protecting companies have developed systems to monitor the
Internet-at-large, and they have a vested interest to remain
current with new Internet technologies for their customers. To best
protect yourselves from infringement on the Internet, we recommend
copyright holders engage such a company.

What will NextGenNews do with a proper Notice?

Once we have proper identification of the infringing material
through the Message-IDs, and a well formed DMCA Notice, we will
block all identified infringing material forthwith. Lastly, we will
respond via email to your Notice informing you that we have deleted
the materials you have identified.